After installing stroker NA engine with harder engine mounts, the car makes much more mechanical noise (that I love). AND audio system needed to be bigger and louder as well!

After I found an used hard top on the Craigslist (Christmas gift to myself), I decided to remove the softtop and replace with Bigger Audio System.

Since I replaced softtop about 5 years ago. I knew the routine, and removing the soft top was not too bad.

My Target parts cost was about $1000 (slight budget over run was noticed ) and keep spare tire and trunk space untouched!

Amplifier selection:
Alpine MRV-F300 (4 channel) x1 for rear speakers (used)
Alpine MRV-F300 (4 channel) x1 for front speakers (used)
Alpine MRV-M500 (mono) x1 for a sub woofer (used)

Speaker selection:
Sub woofer: Eminence EMINATOR 2510 (10") x1
Rear mid: Eminence EMINATOR 1506 (6") x2
Rear tweeter: Eminence APT80 x2
Front: JBL GTO608C (6.5" 2 way) with custom cross over filter

HU:
Alpine UTE-52BT

I wanted to have high efficiency speaker system, yes tweeters are horns! For good slam and clean sound, bi-amplifier connection was selected and digital amplifiers for the minimum power consumption and heat.

As for the sub, I do not like boxy sound from Sub with a small box, A sub woofer with low Q (strong magnet) was selected, and bottom of the sub woofer box is open (open baffle configuration). Equalizer on Head Unit was used to adjust bass response and the sub amplifier needs to be able to supply enough music juice.

Initially I compared Rockford Fosgate PPS4-6 and PP4-T and Eminence, I preferred sound from cheaper Eminence drivers. I was also trying to fit EMINATOR 1506 (6") to the front door, but it was too deep to fit it easily. shallower JBL GTO608C was used for front doors, but I still needed to make wood spacer for them.

It took much longer than I wanted to park my car, but I am happy with the result!

Plywood work


Plywood and amplifier locations and DC power plan


Indoor speaker and cross over filter testing


Finished cross over filter


Some Assembly Required


DC Power and front cross over filters


Before the hardtop


Sub Amplifier and spare tire!


Rear amplifier under the hardtop


Front amplifier under the hardtop


View through the hardtop

 

Wow very impressive. Looks like a lot of effort but the end result is a nice clean install. Well done mate

 

Nice. This is def awesome! I'm thinking of gutting my soft top now.

 

The biggest hiccup I had was noise from UEGO wideband!! I installed them at the same time. This unit is a big noise source (5KHz noise). Very good grounding was not enough. I had to add 3300uF capacitor for 12Vdc for the power supply connection.

Now I am having fun tweaking sound setup and EQs!